What a boring game this was. Maybe it's just that I'm not too familiar with American/Colonial history, or that I was feeling woozy, but I couldn't tell half of what was happening in the Connor story.

From what I could tell, 90% of the missions were linear set-piece runs, minigames or grandiose fights. The "stealth" sections, also, scripted last about 5 minutes each. What happened to actually staking out your enemies? Being left to your devices in an open world to take down targets?

The game also fails to tie-in the side-quests, bloated as they are, with the main game. How exactly did Connor's being a naval captain and economist-land-developer help the main game? Why does Connor, master assassin, personally manage accounts, crafting, trading and so on rather than - I don't know, hiring an assistant? I mean, he got a miner, hunter and farmer that way.

The side-quests aren't bad in themselves - I especially enjoyed the naval battles, but I finished the game without many of them, because I simply couldn't be bothered. The only side-questy stuff I've ignored in the past is the bomb-making in Revelations, which was as unnecessary as a cancer tumour that I'm afraid has taken over this game.

There was no point to the meticulous complexity of the bomb-making mechanic in Revelations, just as there is no point to all the side-stuff in AC3. Can we just get back to assassinating already?

I liked the interpersonal relationships in the game, between Connor with Achilles, Haytham and Lee (as well as the minor characters, like Putnam, Lafayette and that sailor dude). Sharing the love for Haytham, badass character and voice acting. Those scenes were handled really well, and I liked the overall theme of Connor's idealism and how lonely he is in that, compared to just about everyone in the game. But the overarching story, if you asked me to narrate to you, would largely be a blur for me.

Technical stuff was good - great lighting in particular. I loved the Frontier - it was boring, but it felt more organic and natural to move in than Skyrim. Voice acting ranged from great to amazingly bad. The bugs ruined it for me though. Connor running where I don't want him to, trying to climb where I don't want him to, not taking cover in the bushes when he's walking in them - I encountered at least 3-4 bugs an hour on the PC.

The interface is useless on the PC. Binding everything to the E key, the work of a master genius, means that when you try to counter an enemy, Connor decides it's a great time to pick up a fallen rifle. Changing weapons means holding a button to enter a completely different screen - because using the full set of numbers was such a pain. Even on the map, moving the marker requires dragging it with a mouse. Why oh why is that a better idea than using the bloody mouse?

I don't know if this is just franchise burnout, but I thought AC3 was the weakest, most boring game in the series so far.

-- END REVIEW-RANT --

Quote:

Originally Posted by Militiades

Connor is as wooden as they come.

This is something I'm having trouble deciding. On one hand, he does speak in monotone, have a boring and fixed personality and a non-existent sense of humour. On the other though, I really like how that contrasts with the world. He is trying to play it safe and be a judge-vigilante-warrior-hero in a world that doesn't believe in it.

spoiler:

The clinching point for me was at the end, where Connor, after everything he has been through, realises that even though he fought for his village's continued existence, his own people just moved shop, and Juno had never intended him to fight for them. That made me feel really sorry for the poor, straight man.